Familly photograph of Anna Aslanian, 16-year-old Lowell High student who killed herself after years of being bullied. Photo was taken at her 16th birthday party, with makeup and supplies that was one of her presents. (SUN/Julia Malakie)

Anna Aslanian’s wide, beaming smile greets you as you walk into the cozy Colonial home in Lowell’s Highlands neighborhood.

The framed photo on the counter next to the kitchen table shows Anna at her 16th birthday party in October, nearly hugging a large box of makeup brushes and other supplies. She had told her grandmother Yia Yia she wanted to visit hospitals and do makeup for cancer patients.

“She absolutely loved doing makeup,” her mother, Itea, reflects during a recent afternoon in the home bordering Mount Pleasant Golf Club. “That was her thing.”

Three days after flashing that smile, the Lowell High School student made the decision to take her own life.

***

A girl who walked around laughing.

Whose personality was contagious to be around.

Whose smile would light up the room.

It didn’t add up. Itea and other family members searched for clues, for answers. Itea went in and out of Anna’s room, looking for anything.

Several days later, she found a letter behind a picture on Anna’s wall. Anna detailed her inner pain, and wrote that she had been bullied at school.

Anna wrote:

“By writing this letter I hope I can bring awareness to how serious mental health is.

I personally think mental health is more important than physical health.

It needs to be talked about more and more people need to know it’s OK to feel that way and it’s not your fault.”

Itea and her family now have a mission: To make sure other children, other families, don’t go through the same pain.

Itea approached us to tell Anna’s story, hoping it will help anyone battling the pain.

“I just don’t think anybody should have to endure that type of feeling about themselves,” Itea adds.

Her voice trails off. Her eyes tear up.

***

Anna wrote that boys at Daley Middle School would make fun of her shape, saying she should be smaller.

“I walked into eighth grade as a very confident girl, but walking out of eighth grade I left all my self-esteem behind.”

The abuse was relentless, at school, and after school on social media. Anna wrote that she let the bullies’ nasty, degrading, hurtful words get to her. She had tried several diets, but never got the results she wanted.

“I hated myself and my figure so much.”

Younger Anna was different, the family says.

Her mother tells about a time Anna was attending fourth grade, in Florida. Then 9, Anna heard one of her three younger brothers complaining about a bully. Anna told her brother to say something, that he shouldn’t let someone speak to him like that.

Anna later got in the bully’s face at school. If he ever bothered her brother again, she said, he’d have to deal with her.

“We always instilled that,” Itea says, referring to herself and her husband. “We’ve always taught them to watch out for each other and bring other people up.”

***

After turning 16, Anna planned to volunteer at the Lowell Humane Society.

“She would cry when she went there,” her mother says. “She wanted to take every animal home with her.”

Anna was making plans, and couldn’t wait to finish high school.

She talked about moving to New York City or Hawaii, and becoming a veterinarian. She loved animals more than people.

More than $4,000 has been donated to the Lowell Humane Society in Anna’s memory. Some donors are anonymous. Others are people the family has never met.

“It’s amazing how the community pulls together for you,” her mother says. “There are people who did awful things to her, and then there’s this amazing list of people who keep you afloat and do something positive for you. That’s a beautiful thing for us.”

***

Anna’s Yia Yia, Connie Dimantopoulos, says she realizes now how much Anna changed last summer.

Anna’s conversations started turning dark and cynical as school approached, her grandmother says.

“ ‘People can just be so cruel. There are so many mean people out there,’ ” Anna told her grandmother that summer.

“That wasn’t Anna. That wasn’t her,” her grandmother says.

They would go to the mall together frequently. Anna would sleep over. Dimantopoulos would ask what was wrong. Anna never answered.

Anna stopped playing field hockey early in her sophomore year at Lowell High, a year after loving the sport. She looked so upset on the day she quit, her mother remembers.

Anna no longer wanted to go out or participate in social activities.

“I wish I had opened the dialogue more,” her grandmother says. “I get angry. I should have picked up on more things.”

“It’s such a waste,” she later says, once again crying. “I think about the potential. She was just a great kid.”

Anna also wrote about the happy parts of her life: Her three brothers who brightened her day when she wasn’t feeling good about herself; her four close friends who were always there for her, she wrote.

Anna’s death blindsided everyone.

“Unless that thought is put there, unless you see someone in turmoil, unless you are told they’re in agony or you have an idea of the depth of somebody’s pain, you don’t have a reason to think it was anything like that,” Itea says.

“For that to be the only option she saw, it destroys me. It just destroys me,” Itea says, wiping away tears.

***

From 2014 to 2015 in Massachusetts, youth suicides increased from 69 to 76, according to the Samaritans of Merrimack Valley, and increased to 86 in 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available. The state numbers mirror a national trend.

Family members keep returning to how Anna didn’t feel safe in school, that she felt she couldn’t talk to anyone about it.

She can’t be the only one who feels that way, her grandmother repeats.

Many students think they won’t be accepted if they report bullying or talk to others about their issues, her mother says. However, it’s critical for students to share their feelings and not go it alone, Itea stresses.

“If you’re feeling this awful about yourself, you need to talk about it,” she says. “You need to know you’re not alone, and people want to help you. And to not feel like you’re a burden.”

Schools can go a long way, providing a safe space for students to report their problems, Anna’s mother and grandmother emphasize. The students could vent to a trained professional, and be assured the conversation is just between them, the family members say. A professional in certain circumstances would be legally bound to report the issue to authorities.

Anna’s grandmother would like to visit schools in the near future, and create an anti-bullying program.

She would tell Anna’s story.

“I just want to stand up in front of these kids, and say, ‘What are you doing? You don’t know what that kid’s going through. You should all be in this together. Take care of one another,’ ” her grandmother says.

Everyone needs to pay attention and look around, she says; someone could be in pain right next to you.

***

Itea Aslanian runs through dozens of scenarios, the what-ifs.

What could she have done differently?

Push, she says. Get in Anna’s face. Cross the line.

“That’s the only way you’re going to know,” Itea says. “Be intrusive.”

Time has healed little.

“It never changes the outcome. That’s the most difficult piece,” Itea says. “You’re left with this aftermath of nothingness.”

***

Anna’s family says they think they know who bullied her.

The ones who told Anna she wasn’t welcome at the lunch table.

The ones who threw her school supplies on the floor.

The ones who called her profane names in front of other students.

The ones who left Anna feeling empty and worthless, her mother says. Broken. Exhausted. Mentally beaten.

The family won’t name those students, nor pursue criminal charges or a lawsuit. They don’t want to inflict pain on others.

They want those students to realize all that Anna gave up, her love of animals, her field hockey, her art.

Her life.

“I’m very angry and upset about that,” Itea says. “I don’t think it’s fair for those people to enjoy things at school, and my daughter has none of that. They took all that away from her.”

Anna wanted the bullies to know, too.

She wrote in her letter: “I know for a fact if they read this, they’d know who they are.”

“People really have no idea what kind of impact they have on your life.”

***

Anna turned 16 on Oct. 17. The family planned a surprise party for 10 days later.

A few days before the surprise, Anna appeared upset, commenting that nobody had done anything for her birthday.

She opened her home’s door on Oct. 27. About 60 people yelled, “Surprise!”

The Samaritans of Merrimack Valley, a program of Family Services of the Merrimack Valley, has confidential crisis help lines. The phone numbers are 978-327-6607 and 866-912-4673. If someone is in imminent risk, they should call 911.

Rick Sobey is a reporter for the Lowell Sun. Follow him on Twitter @rsobeyLSun.